


More Than A Number

by TheMomeRath



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Genocide, Holocaust, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Rebellion, War Era, World War III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:52:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2122581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMomeRath/pseuds/TheMomeRath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Great War comes, families are split apart and forced to live in camps very like the ones that have gone down in history before. Completely separated from all that he knows and loves, Hiccup is desperate to break free, and the only comfort he can find is in a rebellious prisoner in the camp with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than A Number

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Bar Code AU prompt during Hijack Week.

When the soldiers came, they came without warning.

It was after dark when Hikke heard the sounds of breaking glass as his neighbors were less-than-quietly forced from their home. When he smelled smoke, he reached to shake his father to wake him, but found that Stoick had already risen and was rushing through the room trying to pack things quickly enough so they could escape being carted off.

When the soldiers came, it was too late to do anything to escape.

Shoved in the back of a truck, guarded by a man who looked too tired to be guarding, Hikke thought maybe their situation wasn’t quite hopeless. When one of the women in the truck started whispering to her daughter to comfort her, she said they’d get out soon.

Hikke had hope that this was simply a rough start to something that might get better. He knew that when families disappeared, carted off to the camps, they never came back; but something in him hoped that it wouldn’t be this way. When a man stood up, rocking with the bumpy road, the soldier eyed him cautiously. But as soon as the man started talking, the soldier lifted his gun and shot him through the head. Blood sprayed through the canvas-covered truck bed, and Hiccup tasted it in his mouth. The woman who had shushed her child wailed and clutched the young girl to her chest, combing her fingers through the girl’s hair to remove the fragmented chunks of the man’s skull.

When the soldiers came, they brought a nightmare that Hikke thought would never end.

* * *

 

Lined up, soldiers came and asked each boy to hold up his forearm so they could write down the numbers that stretched with their skin.

Forced to sit through the rough handling of the man with the needle, Hikke had bit his lip and tried to keep from crying out. Behind him stood a soldier along with a line of other younger boys that waited for their forced decoration. Now, he knew he was nothing but a number to so many of these men.

 _229_.

He watched the man scribble the number across the paper as he walked down the line, nodding.

Next to him stood the boy who had been branded number 231. Neither of the two knew much about each other, only that the boy labelled 230 had disappeared one week after arrival at the camps. Some said he had escaped. But most knew that was simply a lie spread to give false security. It was well accepted that he had been sent away to die. By which method, no one dared to guess. But muffled screams indicated that no death at the camps would be quick or easy.

The boy three down from Hikke- 234, by his estimation, stared down at the ground, his dark brown hair crusted with dirt and his skin smudged already. He probably hadn’t had the opportunity to clean himself before he was carted off. Hikke eyed the swollen forearm that should have shown the boy’s tattooed number, but was shocked to see scratches across what had once been the numbers. His eyes shot up 234’s body and he saw dead, numb eyes. Those were the eyes of someone who had seen what Hikke had seen- perhaps worse- and had not adjusted to the horrifying conditions. Not that anyone could adjust, but people grew resigned to their fates within the electric-fenced squalor that would probably be their home until the war was over- or until they died.

The soldier barked for the boy to raise his arm so he could see the number, and Hikke heard a whisper.

“What did you say to me?” The soldier barked in his thick accent.

“I said, fuck you,” the boy said, only slightly louder. His eyes suddenly seemed so alive, like he had been waiting to release for all this time.

Hikke drew in a short breath and glanced up at the red-eyed soldier. He looked like he hadn’t been treated well either, a scar making its way all the way from below his right eye to his chin. The scar twitched as he heard the hostility in 234’s response, and he turned to another officer behind him to ask for a translation.

A wicked grin on his face, he turned back to the boy and looked him up and down. “Maybe I let you off easy if you follow through, slut.” He laughed raucously and brought the butt of his gun roughly down onto the boy’s chest, then grabbed him by the hair, holding him up as tears came to the brown-haired boy’s eyes. “You listen. Here, in camp, I am god. You are shit, you are slave. If I say do it, you do it.”

He shoved the boy to the ground again, and picked up the pencil he had dropped. “Now, arm, please.”

The boy held up the scabbed-over arm, eliciting a grunt from the blonde soldier, who reached down and roughly grabbed the affected area. He twisted the arm in his calloused hands, drawing blood from barely healed scratches, and grunted again before turning to the officer behind him. Hikke was not shocked to see the boy carted off, screaming at the man who carried him by his infected arm, but he was saddened to see him go. No matter whether death was common, it was never a happy moment to see someone being dragged to their torture.

The soldiers completed their rounds and found that everyone who should be present was accounted for. All others were dead or missing.

* * *

 

Nighttime was always a time to relax. Even if Hikke’s stomach hurt from how little food he was ingesting, and the fleas in his tiny bed made his dirty skin itch, it was a moment when he did not have to remain standing. Even if he could never fully relax, it was the closest he could get to it.

But on this particular night, he opened his eyes when he felt something heavy on his shoulder.

“Sorry,” the boy whispered, lifting his slipped foot from off Hiccup’s bunk.

“It’s okay,” Hikke whispered back, and shut his eyes again.

Then a shock snapped his lids open again, and he stared up at the creaking wood above him. The only boy to have ever used the bunk above him was the one who had been dragged off earlier in the day. Hikke leaned out over the edge of his bunk and peeked up over the edge of the boy’s bed above him, hanging on with shaking fingers as he eyed the boy’s vertebrae stretch his shirt. They had shaved his head, and the dirty hair had been replaced with a thin brown fuzz.

“Hey, you’re… you’re the one that got carried off today, right?” he whispered.

The boy spun quickly, then he saw Hikke’s face and smirked. “Yeah, that’s me.” He leaned on one elbow. “So you think I’m interesting enough to talk to all of a sudden, do you?”

Hikke averted his eyes. “I’m just curious…”

“Don’t be. They abused me a little. Tattooed me again. Apparently scratching the first one off didn’t do me any good.” He laughed bitterly. “It sucks, but what can you do?”

“Not much, I guess.” Hikke bit his lip and looked back down the long building where bodies were crammed with hardly three feet above their ‘beds,’ thinking about how his father must be doing. He wouldn’t have responded well to the abuse that happened on a daily basis here, so Hikke prayed that the soldiers would be merciful.

A hand waved in front of his face. “Hey, lost boy, I’m talking to you!” Hikke looked quickly back to the boy. “What’s your name?”

“My… name?”

“I didn’t ask for someone else’s.” The boy grinned. “I’m Jackson.”

“Hikke.” He smiled.

Jackson smiled back. “Well, Hikke. It’s nice to not be nameless anymore.” He dropped his elbow and rolled to face away from the longer-haired boy. “Get some sleep tonight. The soldiers sounded like something especially horrible was coming tomorrow.”

Hikke knew he should be upset by the idea that the next day would somehow be worse than the week he had already endured, something inside him stirred. He was no longer a nameless face in the camp- at least, to one other person.

* * *

 

People stopped measuring time by days. Days were too long and blended together, nights only dark spells in the bleak and grimy atmosphere. It was far easier to tell how much time had passed by how many neighbors either starved to death or were killed.

On the day prisoner 326 finally breathed his last breath, the soldiers in the camp seemed rushed and anxious, talking about how the war had taken this relative or that. None of the camp prisoners paid them any mind. All their own families were dead already. What did they care if the causes of their torture were upset?

Hikke and Jackson knew that things were horrible, but every night, they were thankful that they were still alive. Hikke slipped into the bed next to Jackson one night and they held each other as they felt the aircraft that flew overhead vibrate the foundations of their horrid home.

On the day prisoner 273 died, there was a helicopter heard overhead. Soldiers bustled throughout the camp, barking orders more brusquely than usual and being more abrasive than Hikke had seen them be before. He watched as one boy’s shoulder was smashed underneath a heavy boot, the sickening crunch of broken bone and the pained wail of the boy echoing across the muddy camp.

Somehow, Jackson managed to avoid trouble. Hikke shot him glances while they worked if he noticed the other boy was growing too restless.

He had told himself that he wouldn’t let himself care for anyone when he first saw the death that seemed so inevitable. To care was to feel pain when your loved ones died or disappeared.

Yet Jackson grew on him.

Hikke waited for the day when one of the two would get carried away to certain death, but with each passing day, the event never occurred.

Then one day, no one died at the hands of the officers.

Soldiers wearing uniforms different than the ones proudly displayed by the torturers in the camps raided the fenced-in horror that Hikke had known as home for so many months, freeing the prisoners and burning what was left of the squalid bunkhouses. In the chaos of people frightened my running through the now open fence, Hikke searched for his friend. He wanted to go to him to say they were free, that they could speak to each other once again without fear of being overheard or saying the wrong words- but Jackson was nowhere to be found.

* * *

Hikke gave up hoping that they would ever meet.

He knew it was not uncommon for people to have lost family and friends during the war, and he knew there were other things to deal with. His father had come up in the list of the dead, and Hikke had cried for a week, not stopping while he ate nor slept.

No matter how raw the ache of the hole his father left was, Hikke knew there was something else missing when he was freed. For so many years, he eyed the tattoo on his arm.  _229_. A number that would stick with him until his corpse rotted six feet under the ground.

He did not feel disgusted by that concept. Death was real, death was evil, and he had looked it straight in the face. He had seen piled of burned bodies on his way out of the camp, and while the sight made him wish he has food left in his stomach left to vomit, he realized how grateful he was for it. While once walking through the meat market had caused his stomach to turn, he could now finish his duties without his insides tearing themselves apart.

* * *

 

He chuckled to himself as he sat in a cafe one night, sipping a mug of coffee. To think that years past, he had nearly starved, and now he could sit and eat what he pleased- this gave his aging mind peace.

Moving away from his old country had been a terrifying experience, but he felt that he had an advantage over the others on his ship- he was used to cramped quarters, and now, to know that there was a certain end to the dark, damp, crowded space- he had hope.

But now, now he was growing old. Perhaps not old compared to those who surrounded him, but he felt wearied. The hole his father left had slowly healed, and now he felt ready to continue life on his own.

He glanced up when he heard the bell above the cafe door tinkle. A man close to his own age crossed to the counter and began speaking. Hikke was shocked to hear his own old language- so long had he spoken only English, and he rarely was able to practice the tongue he knew so well as a child.

The cafe owner smiled at the new visitor and nodded, guaranteeing him a spot. When the man turned, Hikke admired him from his table, and offered a smile.

The man approached and took the seat across from him, brown eyes lively as he greeted a fellow countryman. “It seems we share a bond, yes?”

“It looks like we do, doesn’t it?” Hikke said with a smile. “It’s good to hear someone who speaks like me after all these years.” He offered his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.” The other man returned the handshake firmly.

The cafe owner deposited a coffee in front of the man, who thanked him warmly. As he reached for the mug, his sleeves slipped up his thin arms, and Hikke noticed the mark of a tattoo on the inside of his forearm.

“It looks like we have more than just language in common,” he remarked, pulling up his own sleeve and baring the mark forced upon him so many years earlier.

The man’s hands shook and he set down the coffee cup. He reached out his hand toward the tattoo. “May I?” He asked. Hikke nodded. The man ran his fingers across the mark. “Mine is so faded. I tried to remove one of them once, back when I was a child.”

“I had a friend who did that as well. It caused him nothing but trouble.” Brown eyes met Hikke’s from across the small booth, misting up underneath brown hair tinged with hints of grey. “Is something wrong?”

The man slowly slid up his other sleeve, revealing a warped pattern of ink underneath white scars. He then slid up his right sleeve, finally uncovering a number that Hikke knew well.

 _234_.

Hikke touched the number. “Yours is a number I will never forget.” He lifted his eyes to the boy who he had loved. “Jackson?”

The man nodded and blinked away a joyful tear. “It’s so good to see you again, Hikke.”


End file.
